Breakfast was a struggle for me at any weight. I always ate breakfast because skipping it wasn’t really any option. When I was 250 pounds I ate a lot of cereals for breakfast. But since a serving of cereal is about 1/2 a cup I’m guessing that I was eating 3 servings of cereal at a time. Plus it was cereal like Fruity Pebbles (yum), Frosted Flakes and Frosted Mini Wheats. Noticing a theme?

Sugar!

Then I thought I was being healthy by buying those humongous muffins from Costco. You know the ones–they are huge and about 700 calories.

And of course there’s temptations at work like donuts, croissants, muffins.

Yet I was never satisfied with breakfast. I would be hungry an hour later. It took me awhile to realize that what I needed for breakfast was protein and fiber in order to fill me up. A good choice is eggs. Michael and I eat eggs 4-5 days a week. Usually they are scrambled, sometimes I eat 2 fried eggs and a piece of toast. Adding to that a piece of bacon or turkey sausage and I’m full all morning.

The other day I made 2 scrambled eggs with black beans and cheese. I didn’t need to eat my usually banana for a my morning snack because I was so full. If you want to spice up your eggs in the morning, trying making an egg-white omelet with mushrooms, onions, peppers and maybe some ground turkey meat.

About Lisa EireneAbout Lisa Eirene
Lisa lost 110 pounds through calorie counting and exercise. She swims, bikes, runs, hikes and is enjoying life in Portland, Oregon. Her weight loss story has been featured in First Magazine, Yahoo Health, Woman's Day and Glamour.com.

25 Responses to “Failing at Breakfast”

Breakfast is my weakness — we had brunch a few weekends ago I found myself loading salmon, cheesy hashbrowns, eggs benedict, bacon and sausage onto my plate. Then I’m like, oh I’ll just get a piece of melon to balance it out….

I love cereal too. Nothing else sounds appealing to me in the morning, but I made the switch to cereals that contain a lot of protein like Kashi and it’s made ALL the difference. I stay full until lunch but still get my cereal fix!

Weekends are bad sometimes, I like to make massive scrambles with everything in them… The best breakfast that we have been doing lately is oatmeal with fruit (banana, pear, ect) raisins and brown sugar. I was making the oatmeal with milk for awhile until I realized how many calories it was adding and switched to water.. I’m never hungry after this breakfast.

As an adult I figured out that eating cereal alone doesn’t work for breakfast for me. I also have to have protein. I also like to do eggs, but don’t have time with two little ones to get ready. Plus, I like to eat my breakfast late, really late, like 9:30 or 10:00. So figuring out grab and go items have been a challenge, but here’s what I do right now:
English Muffin w/ egg white & cheese (sometimes add turkey bacon)
English Muffin w/ peanut butter (sometimes add a drizzle of honey)
Vitalicious products and turkey bacon

I usually add a fruit to these choices. Weekends give me the time to make omelettes. Protein with breakfast was an issue over the weekend as I was visiting my aunt and she is a cereal & fruit person, and thinks everyone will be fine with cereal for breakfast.
Breakfast is truly my favorite meal. A good southern breakfast is tough for me to pass up – fried eggs, grits, biscuits, gravy, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, mmmm! Even the casserole route of breakfast casserole or hashbrown casserole sound good to me. The syrupy breakfast items aren’t as appealing for some reason.
Great topic!

Great & timely post. I’ve been failing at second breakfast. I made oatmeal muffins and the sugar in them is dropping my blood sugar badly by lunchtime. I can either eat them in late afternoon/dessert or make them sugar-free. Hmmm. This eating thing is always a big experiment, isn’t it?

Breakfast is my very favorite meal of the day! I love my breakfasts. I used to do the sweetened cereal (Cinnamon Toast Crunch was my fave).

Now I eat oats with pumpkin and nut butter, protein waffles with blueberries, 1-minute flax muffin, and 2 days a week are bagels with cream cheese (these are the lowest protein breakfasts I have, but I refuse to give up the bagels).

I like that you have variety in your breakfasts. That’s good for preventing burn-out. Monday-Friday I usually eat scrambled eggs, or oatmeal. Weekends it’s usually a pre-workout snack and less of a breakfast (peanut butter and banana for example).

I will not give up bagels either. I eat the Bagel Thins now. Almost the same. 🙂

I thought those Costco muffins were awesome as a child because my mom wouldn’t let us have whole ones-she’d cut them into quarters. And then it looked like tiny cake!
I may have sometimes used tea set plates to eat my tiny cake. I was cool.

In hindsight, I suppose my mom wins at teaching me portion control.
(she also convinced us frozen peas were a snack. I was raised to be a good eater!)

I always love eating breakfast. There are times it is hard because what I would love would love to just go get some lemon poppyseed loaf and an iced mocha from Starbucks. Or, have a croissant, eggs and bacon on the side…oh, the cereals GET ME!! I love Alphabits, Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Comb, those are the ones that are killer…but I also get into overload mode (even more) on Total Raisin Bran and Fiber One Frosted Shredded Wheat. My family used to joke that I could eat cereal at every meal….I still could if I thought it was good for me 😉

I love breakfast and brunch so much I that when I was engaged and planning our wedding I wanted a wedding breakfast – not a dinner reception. My husband, my parents and his parents all out voted me.

When I was a lid my favorite cereals were Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms. I miss breakfast buffets, danish and pastry – occasionally. All I need to do to get a 6 month dose of anti-breakfast buffet medicine is to watch the typical dinners at any breakfast buffet. Most of the diners are overweight and filling their plates over and over again with white, beige, tan and sugared foods. I sit with my fruit, eggs and coffee and I count the ways I am grateful to be where I am today.

Our family used to go out for breakfast often. We almost never go out anymore because breakfast at home is so much more satisfying. I can use Splenda sweetened syrup, whole grain -no wheat pancakes and waffles, rye toast, sausage, bacon, ham, roasted veggies and all kinds of eggs and fruits.

What’s wrong with a brunch reception? I’ve thought of that and loved the idea! Quiches, fresh fruit and mimosas? Yes please!

I loved Lucky Charms too. I’d sneak the marshmallows out of the box and leave the cereal. 😉

You are completely right. A few times in the last year I’ve been to a buffet (like Sweet Tomatoes Buffet) and was astonished at the way the diners looked, how much they ate and how often they went back for seconds. It was quite the eye-opening experience.

I also failed at breakfast in the past. Although I did not eat the sugary stuff like you, my serving size was actually 4-5 serving sizes in my bowl.
These days I enjoy Muesli or All Bran Flakes in the week and weekends we enjoy egg 🙂

Breakfast is easily my favorite and easiest meal of the day. I’m obsessed with eggs so scrambles are right up my alley. I also love protien pancakes and waffles topped with fruit. And french toast… drool! And none of those are bad for me when we are using whole grain spelt flour, no added sugar, etc.